Four thousand, seven hundred forty-five miles is a long way – especially when the biggest event of your life waits at the other end.

It didn’t take Deven Owsiany six years to travel those 4,745 miles. But in those 72 months, the Royersford native has left St. Pius X High School behind for a journey around the world and back – with stops in Reading, State College, California, Dubai, London, and Moscow (4,745 miles away), just to name a few.

All of this for a sport she knew nothing about when the journey began.

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And in 36 months, Owsiany is hoping to complete that journey with one more trip: 4,835 miles south to Rio de Janeiro and the 2016 Summer Olympics.

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When Owsiany left Royersford for Penn State-Berks in 2007, she took with her a solid athletic resume. Having played soccer and basketball at St. Pius, while also running track, she chose soccer at PSU-Berks, and continued playing for the highly competitive club team after transferring to main campus in 2008.

“That team was really fun and very competitive, but when the spring season came, I got kind of bored and wanted to stay active,” said Owsiany. “My friend was on the club rugby team and dragged me to a training session. I always thought I’d go back to soccer after the season, but 12 months later I was starting in the national championship game.

“Only then did I realize how much I loved it,” Owsiany said. “I knew then I wasn’t going back to soccer.”

The Nittany Lions returned to – and again lost – the national title game during Owsiany’s senior year, and she intentionally saved a class to take the next year so she could play rugby one more time as a fifth-year senior in 2011-12.

But then she got an offer she couldn’t refuse.

“My mother wasn’t very happy with me because I told her I was saving one class for a fifth year. I took off the fall (of 2011) and worked at Penn (health systems), then was planning on taking the one class and playing rugby at Penn State.” Owsiany said. “But then I was invited to live and train at the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, Calif.”

That was because Rugby Sevens – a smaller-squad version of the sport than the traditional “15s” played at the college level – had been added to the summer Olympic program starting in 2016. USA Rugby and the United States Olympic Committee had teamed up to develop the squad, with sights set on Rio de Janeiro three summers from now.

“I have no regrets at all about leaving (Penn State),” said Owsiany, who finished that last political analysis class online and earned her degree in health policy administration last spring. “It was definitely a bummer to not be able to play my fifth year, but knowing I was in the midst of chasing my dreams, it’s becoming more tangible. It was pretty amazing to tell people I’m leaving for California to train with Olympic athletes. The team is really fun, we’re all friends and we live really close to the center. It’s pretty inspiring to be there.”

Owsiany trains Monday through Friday, and has a part-time job to bring in a few extra bucks, in addition to the stipend provided by the Olympic Committee.

While training is the “boring” part of her new “job,” the rewards are plentiful. The ultimate goal is a spot on the 2016 Olympic team, but until then, Owsiany will have to settle for trips to exotic locales, including last month’s Rugby World Cup Sevens in Moscow.

“To be staying and eating and playing in the same stadium as the men’s sevens was incredible,” Owsiany said. “People talk about the (New Zealand) All Blacks and their coach and the really well-known teams, and to be in the elevator with those guys and have casual conversations, it was nice to see that we’re all just people playing a sport we love.”

Owsiany started the entire tournament, including a 10-5 win over Spain in the third-place match. Along the way, the Americans beat Brazil, Fiji, Spain and Ireland before losing to eventual champion New Zealand and beating Spain again to finish third.

The third-place finish didn’t lock up a spot in the 2016 Olympics for the United States, but it served notice in the relatively new sport of rugby sevens that the Americans will be a contender in Brazil.

It also gave her parents an excuse for a summer vacation.

“I’m really lucky to have parents who are able to support me and they came to London and Dubai and Moscow,” Owsiany said. “It’s definitely really comfortable that I can hear my dad in the stands. I don’t like to look at them because it makes me nervous, but it’s nice to hear a familiar voice in the crowd.”

Rugby sevens is played with most of the same rules as traditional rugby “15s,” but just with fewer players on the field at a time. The field remains the same size, and games are fast and furious. With just two seven-minute halves (10-minute halves in the final), teams play multiple games per day and every score – or “try” – is critical.

The 5-foot-4, 135-pound Owsiany recently switched positions from hooker to scrumhalf, where she helps organize and direct the scrums and is the team’s primary passer. Last months’ World Cup was her first major tournament in the new role, and judging by the results, it’s a role she’ll keep for the foreseeable future.

“The switch from hooker to halfback happened naturally,” said Ric Suggitt, the head coach of the USA sevens squad. “Deven’s halfback pass improved immensely and we had another player who is a good defender who could play hooker. The change helps get both strong tacklers on the field at one time.”

“She is a hard worker and a good tackler,” Suggitt added. “You have to be mentally tough to play 14 minutes of full-out rugby. All of the players on the team have a role to fulfill and Deven’s key role in attack will be to make accurate passes to the speedsters in open space. On defense she will have to continue to apply pressure on the inside two backs and make her tackles.”

To most rugby newbies, the first thing that sticks out is the tackling. Even in the women’s game, the hits can be vicious, especially when made in the open field. With fewer players on the field in rugby sevens, the hits are a little less frequent. But with more space and players running at higher speeds, those hits can be even more violent.

“I really love to tackle,” said Owsiany. “So to be able to pressure their scrumhalf on defense and be in the middle of the field at all times is where I really feel comfortable and feel like I could really excel. I really love playing sevens because it’s a lot about how hard you work in the offseason. It’s an individual effort where if you miss one tackle, it will likely lead to a try and all eyes are on you. It adds an excitability to the game and it gets you excited to go play.”

Owsiany is currently enjoying a few weeks at home with her family before heading back to California. In two weeks, she’ll be in Colorado as part of the full USA 15 squad at the Nations Cup in Colorado.

Then it’ll be back to the grind of offseason training before the sevens season begins in Dubai near the end of the year.

“Offseason training is an exciting time, but it’s a challenge,” Owsiany said. “It’s hard lifts and lots and lots of running.”

But after a year in Chula Vista and roughly five years on the rugby field, Owsiany knows where all that hard work can lead: Dubai, London, Moscow … and Rio de Janeiro.

“Absolutely, that’s the ultimate goal,” Owsiany said of the Olympic dream. “It’s something we all want. My coach told me, ‘Don’t think I’m not going to try to replace you.’

“That’s the way it should be,” Owsiany said. “That’s what drives you to get even better.”